AP African American Studies Resource Archive | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti

1805

Read a translation of some of Haiti’s founding principles as an independent nation.

Primary Source

Black and white photograph of a large group of people, mostly women, posed around the exterior of a large Italianate style mansion. The figures are arranged on the building's multi-level balconies, stairs, and around a rectangular pool on the ground level. The photograph is mounted on a piece of gray cardboard that has sustained loss at the top right and bottom right corners. In the bottom right corner is black script that is partially missing.

Convention of Madam C. J. Walker Agents

1924

View an example of the extent and success of Madam C. J. Walker’s business empire through this photograph.

Primary Source

President Barack Obama, standing wearing a black suit, white shirt, and striped gray and white tie, awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Maya Angelou, seated wearing a black dress, sparkly necklace and earrings, and sunglasses, as other honorees (including Sylvia Mendez) sit and look on.

Maya Angelou at the Library of Congress

1984

Listen to Maya Angelou read from her work, including her poem “Still I Rise,” and Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.”

A color lithograph poster for the musical film Space is the Place featuring Sun Ra and the Arkestra. Sun Ra is depicted in the center of the poster wearing a headdress and collar resembling that of an Egyptian pharaoh. The headdress is topped by a large golden orb with long extensions on either side. On either side of Ra is a yellow and red flaming sun. Above and below him are the words [SUN RA / IN / SPACE IS THE PLACE] small planets are scattered among the lettering.

Poster for “Space is the Place”

1974

View an example of Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist art.

Primary Source

Three Black men in suits and two Black women in dresses protesting, as other people protest in the background. The woman on the right, Maya Angelou, is holding a sign, the bottom of which reads "W.E.B. Du Bois."

Maya Angelou, Julian Mayfield, and Others in Ghana

1963

View an example of African American activism in Ghana.

Primary Source

A map of the then-forty-eight states, each with a number of lynchings from 1889 to 1921 (in red) and the number of representatives who voted against the federal anti-lynching bill (in black).

“Visualizing the Red Summer” Map

2015–2025

Explore the history of racial violence culminating in the Red Summer of 1919.

Thematic Map

Two Black women wearing light-colored coats look into a glass vitrine case with the title "Arthur A Schomburg, 1874–1938." Atop the case is a matted photograph of Arturo [Arthur] Schomburg.

“The Negro Digs Up His Past”

1925

Read this essay by Afro-Latino historian and collector Arturo Schomburg.

Primary Source

Cover of A Red Record, with the title written in red on a yellowed piece of paper.

“A Red Record”

1895

Read an excerpt from Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s analysis of lynchings in the US at the end of the nineteenth century.

Primary Source

Marcus Garvey, a Black man, wearing a dark jacket and vest, white shirt, and dark tie. He is also wearing a button on his lapel.

“Address to the Second UNIA Convention”

1921

Read Marcus Garvey’s address rejecting the colonization of Africa and advocating Black nationalism.

Primary Source

Metal of a shirtless man wearing shorts and holding a spear. His let wrist has a chain that has been broken.

Commonalities and Differences in Maroon Communities

with Ana Lucia Araujo

Understand how maroon communities emerged and sustained themselves across the African diaspora.

Video

Map of Pernambuco, Brazil, with ships off the coast and an inset depiction of Black men wearing white pants in a field.

The Palmares Quilombo

with Ana Lucia Araujo

Learn more about one of the most significant maroon communities in the Americas.

Video

A silhouette head-and-shoulders portrait of Paul Cuffe, above a sailboat and within an octagon with the text "Captain Paul Cuffee, 1812."

The Nineteenth-Century Emigrationist and Anti-Emigrationist Movements

with Nemata Blyden

Explore the key figures, sites, and concepts of both the emigrationist and anti-emigrationist movements.

Video